Chaos Angel Spanner — Chapter 19: Hackers of Reality
Part 2: Building the Perfect Girl (Final Revision)
Part 2: Building the Perfect Girl (Final Revision)
telesphere. Sooner or later the MSM would have to hear about the hot new reporter with no name and the rebel network she reports for. The media conglomerate executives’ screaming tantrums have been censored for your moral protection.
copco bremerton. “The iPhone case is closed,” Sparks protests.Fox: ...excuse me, this just in: We’ve just received reports of unapproved propagandists flying around claiming to report the news.Sun: ...a woman who looks like ESPNBC’s Amanda Currie and who claims to be anonymous...ABCNN: ...we have not found any evidence of any people without a name registered in the Public Relations Guild records...QVCBS: Beware of false news networks purveying lies. The truth only comes through us.ESPNBC: ...excuse me, this just in: There’s a look-alike running around claiming to be me. (puts report aside) What in the world is that woman thinking? Is she out of her mind?
“Good for you,” Shockley says. “I’m concerned with the hazardous waste your companion left in the arena the Toymaker blew up.”
“I never expected them to explode,” Shira protests. “AntiMeth is supposed to make tweakers puke, not boosters splorch.”
“No. You were targeting them.”
“They were targeting me. They tried to do it by sacrificing my friends to Satan. Gangsters have an insane obsession with their manhood, you see. Uppity women like me, and like you, insult their sacred manhood. Insult their manhood, they make you die. So we prepared for them.”
Sparks says, “Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. If, of course, your vendetta hasn’t gotten in the way of your reason.”
Shockley glares back at him. “Who’s lost his reason?” She directs her glare down to his crotch, then back to his face. Sparks and Shira laugh. Shockley resists the temptation to bash their heads together.
western state hospital. The name is a relic from when northern Cascadia and southern Okanagan were a single state called Washington, after the first American president. This hospital is not medical, but psychiatric.
Psychotics crowd the common room: some florid, some dubious, some merely political prisoners sent there in the belief that political incorrectness is by definition a mental disease. One of the more florid cases prances and bounces around in her white gown. “Ichi ni san, ichi ni san,” Mina Tatsumi half-sings endlessly, convincing the other patients she’s crazy. “Ichi ni san, ichi ni san, ichi ni san—” She shuts up and stops in her tracks when she finds a business-suited man in her way. Curious about this man, she tilts her head. “Hello. Do I know you?”
Oliver Thorwald crosses his arms impatiently. “Mina, it’s me, your boss.”
Her jaw drops; she takes a deep breath. “Lars?”
“Oliver. Father’s dead, remember?”
“Oh, I’m sooo sorry.”
“Cut it out, Mina. I’m bringing you back to work.”
“Really?”
“Let’s go.” He grabs her by the arm and pulls her with him, out of the hospital to his waiting stretch Hummer.
black tower. Fleer stands on Brinkman’s desk in full uniform and scolds his co-synarchs as Litton sits back and watches from a chair in the corner. “Walter! You were the one who brought Grandfather to town and got him killed! Luke! You unleashed your faithful Patriots on the city and all we’re getting is our good reputation trashed in the media and our asses sued! Johnny, shut up!”
Jack Becket rises to protest “You—”
Everson lets out a contemptuous laugh. “Alan, do you really believe your oh so mighty warriors can succeed where Johnny’s police failed repeatedly?”
Fleer sneers. “Your men are amateurs, Luke. I command real warriors.”
“Are they willing to commit the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of their faith in Our Nation, Alan?”
Brinkman stands up. “Are your forces gonna fight over it, huh?”
Litton stands up and whistles. Four men glare at him. “You’re forgetting, boys. It’s almost too late to strike. Y’all better do it now, before they do and the angel of chaos pisses on our graves.”
The Fearsome Foursome, officially allies, publicly friends, stare each other down like mortal enemies about to draw their revolvers.
bangor squats. Scope follows the bright-eyed girl through crowded alleys, around squalid shanties, past illegally occupied warehouses and mini-storage units, keeping his focus on her always.
Nameless Reporter: The lamestream won’t tell you about rumors of sex slave rings operated by gangs in the slums. If this were a case of “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” they’d inform you immediately and relentlessly, and the authorities would shut down the slave rings immediately. But what if the slaves aren’t even human? Blank-out.She asks herself what Rebecca Street would do, and she knows at once. A Syndicate dealer makes a deal with a Corporate client. She and Scope hide nearby. He makes sure the viewers can hear the dealer’s every word. “It’ll be like you’re doing Shira Thomas herself.”
They look at each other. They sneak into the squat.
There, they can see Shira sitting naked on a chair, acting strangely, robotically babbling nonsense. Rather, it’s a sexbot made to look exactly like Shira. And it’s malfunctioning.
They feel a woman’s hand on their shoulders. Kira. With a mischievous look in her eye.
biotron labs. Thorwald leads a blindfolded Dr. Tatsumi into the rebuilt building. “I got a surprise for you, Mina. A really big one.”
She hops around like a little girl expecting Christmas presents. “Oh Oliver, what could it be?”
He grins. “You’ll see. I promise.”
He takes her through spy-resistant mazes, past terrorist-seeking security robots, down into the basement. One final door closes behind them. He removes her blindfold.
Her eyes go wide, her jaw drops, she takes in a slow deep breath. There, before her eyes, is a new clone bank bearing the clones of her beloved Sonoda twins.
student council room. Charmian, angry and grim, presides over the after-school emergency meeting. “Lady has been taken from us. She’s got only one life left, and she won’t be able to return for a month. Someone’s responsible—”
“You are!” yells Lucy. “It was your weakness that led to this!”
“Bull pucky,” Debbie snarls. “It was your ambition, Lucy, that led her into this.”
“Lies!” roars Bart. “It was female weakness that left her dead! Only one man is worthy to rule this school!”
Lucy shoots a deadly look at him. “Your fellow Real Men killed her, Bart. It takes a woman’s touch to keep you Real Men from killing each other and us.”
“Men!”
Team Valiant stand up. “Yes, sir!”
“We’re ending this girly farce!”
Dorian warns, “Go against the Student Council, and you go against SPEC itself.”
“Very well! Prepare for Challenge!”
“I will win,” says Charmian. Bart storms out; Team Valiant follow.
Lucy sidles up to her. “You know it’s on you, Madam President.”
“Do you think you can do any better?”
Lucy smiles. “Not only can. Will. Soon. Be seeing you.” She strides away as what’s left of the Student Council stare after her.
telesphere. Shira sits before the camera wearing a blue sailor-suit school uniform. Two men (Shane Chantry, white; Oswald Bean, black) sit behind her. She smiles bashfully.
black tower. In the highest office in Seattle, Litton and the Fearsome Foursome watch. Brinkman frowns. “It almost looks as if she’s anticipating your every move.”Shira: I’ve got something to confess. I admit I’ve been doing wrong. I’ve decided to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... [starts to remove her shirt]Oz: Oh, shit!Shane: She’s malfunctioning!Shira: ...blah, blah, blah, blah...
[Shira (or her simulacrum) continues to monotonously repeat the same syllable as the men forcibly stop her from stripping. She throws them off; they fly to either side, out of the picture. She throws off the scarf, proceeds to tear the blouse’s thick fabric in front with an audible rip, throws it behind her. With one yank she snaps off her bra and discards it. She shows off pert pretty breasts with large nipples. She stands up, drops her skirt and panties, exposes shapely hips and hairless pubis...
[Whip-pan to the real Shira.]
Shira: Yo, Rat Bastard! You got a Shira-model Ladytron 5000, right? Now I do too!
[The camera follows her to her left, where Kira embraces the naked Shirabot sitting in front of her, who holds Freddy Freakbeak up to strategically cover her breasts with her forearms. Shane and Oz stand behind them grinning. Kira winks.]
Shirabot: Heya.
Freddy: Yo.
“Bitch got some skills. Plays a hard game. Oughta hire her.”
“Good luck trying. You and I know full well she’ll laugh in your face.”
“Hmph. England won all the battles but France won the war. I’ll get the last laugh yet.”
minuteman base. Between the Bangor warehouse district and the nuclear submarine base, Braddock Green makes an order. “I want twenty bombs. Twenty.”
The creepy, raspy voice of the Toymaker replies over the phone, “How good do you want ’em?”
“Good enough to end Leila Shelley, and Shira Thomas with her.”
“Not good enough.”
“Then good enough to slow her down.”
“It’s gonna cost you big time.”
“Price no object.”
shira’s apartment. Two naked sexbots, Pansy Persocom and the Shirabot, study each other with curiosity. Jennifer syncs her PAN to the Shirabot to run diagnostics. Shira, Kira, their mother, and the girl with the violet eyes watch on. The nameless girl says, “I’ll bet you wanna give the new girl a name.”
“‘Bliss Ladytron’ would be the obvious one,” says Shira, “don’tcha think?”
Jennifer frowns. “Too obvious, if you ask me.”
Hope asks her daughters, “So where’d you two find it?”
“This guy was pimping her out,” Kira replies, “when a nameless reporter we love found her for us.” She winks.
“If she really is a sexbot,” the girl says mischievously, “aren’t you gonna make love to her?”
The twins give her their wickedest smirks and say together, “Don’t give us ideas!”
They take turns letting her make love to her at the maximum-love setting, too much for ordinary people, almost too much for these strange women.
dictel center. The mothers of the Student Council assemble in this rarely used sorry excuse for a suburban community center, summoned by Mrs. Margaret Wilkinson at her daughter Lucy’s request. Naturally, Mrs. Eden Becket Fleer arrives with all six of her daughters: (oldest to youngest) Vivian, Dorian, Charmian, Christian, Julian, and Lillian. Both of them turn their backs on Mrs. Hadassah Brinkman: the only Israelites they will accept at the head of the Student Council belong to the Tribe of Manasseh, not Judah. Mrs. Wilkinson and Mrs. Fleer confront each other at the podium as the “lesser” mothers watch on. Mrs. Wilkinson keeps a smiling Lucy with her, as she intends to build up her daughter’s case.
“Your daughter,” she argues, “has failed repeatedly to fulfill her responsibilities on the Student Council. One, she allowed in someone who turned out to be a moral defective.”
“Her own cousin,” Mrs. Fleer retorts, ”the daughter of our Chief of Police, and the granddaughter of the Chairman of our Party, if you mind.”
“Second, she allowed another member do die on her watch.”
“Because your daughter’s ambition led her to leave her vulnerable so that she could take the blame.” Lucy gasps.
Mrs. Wilkinson allows a hard smile to form on her lips. “Worst of all, and with all the horror this implies, she allowed none other than Shira Thomas to worm her way into her heart.”
Charmian stands up to protest. “No!”
Mrs. Fleer stares hard at her daughter’s rival’s mother. “Are you going against the will of my husband and my father? America is not, and must never be allowed to be, a democracy, Mrs. Wilkinson. This is the city of my family, the city my grandfather built, the King who died at the hands of the evil angel of chaos. We Beckets are the very embodiment of America; therefore if you go against my daughter, you go against America. Do you hear, Margaret House Wilkinson? There is no need for debate. Daughters, let us go.” She leaves, and her daughters follow.
black tower. FBI Director Karl Radisson arrives accompanied by Agent Locke Holmes and COPCO CEO Brendan Sparks. Litton and the Fearsome Foursome stare at them. “Gentlemen,” says the Director in his Australian drawl, “are you not satisfied that two disasters have occurred in two consecutive weeks?”
Brinkman growls, “Mr. Director, the real disaster is the one that threatens our Revolution and Empire without end.”
“And now the rabble have an angel of chaos on their side, Mr. Brinkman.”
Holmes adds, “And evidence points to our terrorist being none other than that young lady living in sin with your own granddaughter.”
Litton says, “Give me the evidence, gentlemen, and I’ll use it to destroy her, no problem.”
“The problem is less the angel of chaos,” says Radisson, “as disunity among your colleagues here.”
Fleer points angrily at Brinkman. “That man is an incompetent!”
Brinkman points back at Fleer. “And that man’s a blunt instrument!”
Radisson stares hard at the four synarchs all accusing each other. “You had better stop fighting each other and unite with us and our Party Leader against the angel of chaos, or the rabble will rise up against us and our Revolution is done for.”
Litton says, “You heard the man.”
“Good day.” Radisson tips his cap and turns to leave with Holmes and Sparks. The Fearsome Foursome glare at them until the door closes, then resume staring each other down.
shira’s apartment. The twins watch in fascination as their parents take turns having sex with their daughters’ likeness. Bliss pleasures them like the expert she was designed to be; she gives them permission to lose control and unleash themselves on her. The nameless girl looks at the twins strangely. “How can you watch your own dad having sex?”
Kira says, “You’re talking to someone they gave up on keeping out of their bedroom when we were three.”
Shira says, “If they can do us, why can’t we watch ’em doing her?”
“Well, it looks like they really are having having sex with you.”
Shira says, “Hot damn if it doesn’t turn me on.”
“Me three!”
The girl looks strangely at the twins; they wink back wickedly.
biotron labs. The doctorly silver-haired woman in the red coatdress and cat’s-eye glasses shakes Dr. Tatsumi’s hand. Thorwald says, “This is Dr. Jenna Hunter, our new head of psychological research. Dr. Hunter, chief research officer Dr. Mina Tatsumi.”
“Pleased to meet you at last, Dr. Tatsumi,” says Dr. Hunter. “I believe we’ve succeeded in reconstructing their personality. Please follow me.” They follow her to one particular clone tank now shifting horizontal. “She’s ready.”
When the tank goes fully horizontal, it drains its fluid and then opens. The naked clone of a beautiful large-breasted Japanese girl with strange green hair coughs and struggles to breathe. She weakly rises to a sitting position.
She sees Dr. Tatsumi. They recognize each other. The clone gasps, “Mina-hakase...”
Mina Tatsumi faints.
penguindrome. They greet the KCUF News Team like conquering heroes. Alex makes a beeline toward the bright-eyed girl, sweeps her up in her arms, and gives the surprised woman a long hard kiss on the lips. She says, “Sorry, I got carried away.”
“Oh, no problem. How did I do?”
“The lamestream totally hate you.” Alex winks.
They get mobbed by the celebrating KCUF crew as Nick brings in the Mobster Mike’s delivery. For the first time, the bright-eyed girl feels she has finally achieved her dream. And for the last time, the soul of Amanda Currie and the image of Rebecca Street fuse to become one.
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[Revision 4.0, 3/12/13: Mostly new scenes extending last section’s sequence and previous Fourth Revision threads; all scenes remaining from Revision 2 have been heavily edited to fit the new continuity. Original R2 title: “The Perfect Girl” (song title from The Cure); the final title also references a science book called Building the Perfect Blonde.]
[Revision 4 Final, 3/13/13: One continuity error fixed: I restored Christian to the list of six Fleer sisters; this was a significant omission because Christian Fleer plays a major role in future events.]
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